The Father's Love

I attended a conference last weekend at my favorite church, First United Methodist Church. I love these people so much. I love this church. They have given me more than I will ever be able to give back to them. I have never known acceptance in any other group like the acceptance I receive from them. God has used the people of this church to love me. He has used this church to speak love into my heart. There is no way I'll ever be able to explain it. So, I won't try. Suffice it to say that part of my heart belongs there in that sanctuary and in their parlor with those precious people, a very large part.

It was here and through these people that I received my first revelation of how much Father God loves me, not only with a father's love but with a mother's love also. It has been a huge and massive undertaking to heal the wounds of not having known that love in my life. But now I rest in it. I just wanted to share that with you. I no longer have an orphan spirit but am living in the full knowledge of the Father's intense and unconditional love for me. And I am free.

I may have said this before here, I don't know - but all my life I have known that "Jesus loves me". That realization had never transferred over to a relationship with the Father. I thought of God the Father as a judgmental, controlling, distant God who was waiting for me to screw up so He could come down and shower punishment and guilt on me and then disappear again. I had found a friend in Jesus, but God was not befriendable. I eventually turned away from the whole lot of them and spent some 10 years in deep darkness. The funny thing about that is that it seemed so much brighter and more welcoming than the religious background I had come from. Go figure. It amazes me how we harm our children thinking we are training them up in the way the should go. ouch. Anybody else out there turning into their mother? Looks like I have some work to do around here in my own house. I do not want Max to have my faith or my relationship with God. I want him to have his own. I want him to know God intimately, lovingly, withOUT condemnation. I want him to want to follow God. I want him to yearn for His Presence. I want him to hunger for Him. I guess that means I need to let go. Wow, I'm having an epiphany here. Father - help me to allow Max to find his own way with you. I trust you to know him, to hold him, to woo him to you. I am letting go of that intense desire to drag him to you. Have your own way. Help me to love Max unconditionally, completely, wholly - just as you do. Thank You.

Gotta go. I believe I may have some confessing to do to a big ol' precious little boy.

More on this love later. Be blessed!